Resident Evil Side Story: Rise of the Land Sharks
by Chicanery A. Beguile
Summary: Ever wonder: Did Claire Redfield and what was left of her group ever make it to Alaska? Were there any other survivors and what have they been doing since the outbreak? How far can a helicopter go on one tank of gas? Why don't zombies eat each other?
1. Sharks

A.N.: I wrote this just to get this off my mind and clear my head so I could think more about other stories I want to write. I don't have a beta reader for this and I don't really want one. This fanfic really isn't that important to me. It's just an outlet, so please excuse the run-on sentences and dodgy punctuation and grammar. If you were hoping for a lot of smut stop reading now because there is practically none. There is NO guy on guy or girl on girl. It's rated the way it is for language and violence mostly. This is a rather serious fanfic.

-This takes place immediately after Resident Evil: Extinction (3)-

Her name is Sera. She once told me that her full first name was Seraphim, as in the highest rank of angels, having six wings. I asked her why she never went by it, and she said she wasn't Christian, but I think there was more to it. Her last name isn't important. Whose is in a world where over 90 percent of the human species has been either wiped out or turned into zombies? Her title is Commodore. It kind of started as a joke, since she is the leader of our small land yatch fleet, but everyone calls her that now even though she always says we don't have to. She was also nominated, elected, resigned, and nominated and elected again, so that makes her a democratic commodore, right? I'm getting too in-depth here.

Our fleet, the _Land Sharks_, was heading south out of Washington State, where we had had one of the most terrible incidents of this unfortunate journey so far. It was just about equal to when Richard had been Commodore for his short reign that abruptly ended with him getting us surrounded by a city full of zombies. We lost five people to the zombies, they were eaten, three more, including Richard, were seriously injured by zombies but survived, and almost everyone else received minor injuries in one way or another. If it wasn't for Sera taking back control of everything I'm sure many more people would have died before we got away.

What's that? Yes, I did just say that three people survived zombie bites, and live perfectly normal lives. Well normal for the current situation. "How?" you ask. Well it's all thanks to the good Doctor Pholus who we rescued quite a while back. He was the last one left alive after repeated zombie attacks on his hospital turned research facility. He turned part of it into a research facility after the outbreak in Raccoon City in order to make a vaccine for the virus. So long as the virus doesn't mutate, and we check just about every zombie we kill for viral mutations, we are all immune to the virus.

Anyway, heading south out of Washington, we had just yesterday skirted Portland, Oregon, trying not to draw any zombie attention. The land yatchs we use are completely home built following only a loose design. They are a bit like a cross between a catamaran, an outrigger, and a large, traditional, covered, land yatch. The larger ones could carry about ten people and supplies, while the smaller ones could carry about half that depending on how you packed them. The first one was made by Sera with help from her family, mostly her dad, before the first outbreak just out of self interest, but also as a way to thwart the rising gas prices since land yatchs use wind to move like a sailboat. She built it using her experience from building airplane parts, and also used the same material so it was light, fast, and strong. The second one that she built after the outbreak in Raccoon City, was slightly larger, and she also added to both yatchs solar panels and lithium car batteries so that even if there wasn't any wind, if the batteries were charged the yatch could still move, if only for a short time. Our fleet included seven land yatchs, four smaller ones, three larger ones, and it still included Sera's two original ones. We called our fleet the _Land Sharks_ because of the way the single sail on each yatch looked like a shark fin sticking up above the surface of the earth. Of course we named each ship after a different species of shark. We had _Tiger Shark, Reef Shark, Whale Shark, Maco Shark, Great White Shark, Leopard Shark, and Blue Shark_. We shorten all their names by taking off the "shark" at the end of each.

The _Leopard_, which was the smaller of Sera's two original land yatchs, was in the lead. We were now heading east kind of following parts of the Oregon Trail, but we were following them backwards, from Oregon to Wyoming. Sera wanted to get away from the heavily populated coast and the harsh and difficult to navigate Rocky Mountains and go to the slightly less populated great plains of the interior. We were using interstate 84 as our guide. Sera wasn't sure what we'd do once we got to the flatter part of Wyoming but she said she would think about it on the way there and we shouldn't worry about it until we get there.

Land yatchs going with the wind can only travel as fast as the wind is going, but if there's a cross wind they can speed up to several times faster than the wind speed. And right now the wind was coming out of the northwest and we were sailing down the interstate at almost the speed limit. We tried to go around the towns while still staying on a decent road if possible. It was less ware and tear on the yatchs and it was faster. We got out of the Cascade Mountains around noon and were planning on spending the night west of Pendleton.

Somewhere, in the middle of an empty stretch of road, between towns a man appeared seemingly out of nowhere, but probably just out of the ditch, and we almost ran him over. Normally we'd stop with some distance between us and anyone else so we could determine if they were dangerous or not and set up some precautions like snipers and trained guard dogs. But since we came upon this man so suddenly we hadn't time to get any precautions in place, and he came running towards the lead ship, _Leopard_, and boarded her before anyone could stop him. Sera was already ready to greet him when he climbed on board, but something didn't seem right about him. The guy looked the same way I probably had when Sera had first found me, desperate and gone half wild from living alone and in fear. Sera started to say something but was silenced when the guy pulled a gun out from inside his jacket and pointed it at her.

"All right, every-!!" He was cut short when Sera disarmed him and pistol-whipped him with his own gun. The guy didn't even have time to be surprised before his face hit the deck.

Sera sighed and casually released the gun clip, racked the slide and then took it off, making the gun completely useless. Did I mention Sera is a second degree black belt? She was totally unfazed by the life-threatening situation and was talking to some other members of our group as if she were talking about the weather. "Guess we better get him to the Whale so the Doctor can take a look at the damage I did." She nudged him with her foot.

I rushed over. I was on the ship right behind the _Leopard_, the _Maco_. "We're going to bring him with us after he tried to kill you?!?" I said incredulously.

She gave me a harsh glare. "You were the same, almost, remember?"

"Yeah, but he - I - I didn't have a gun!" I stammered indignantly.

"I said 'almost.' Anyway, can you help carry him?"

I threw up my hands in defeat. "Yeah, I guess."

We searched him for weapons before we moved him to the _Whale_, which was Doctor Pholus ship. The _Whale_ was kind of like an ambulance, a small hospital on wheels. It was also the largest ship at 12 feet wide and over twice as long. Being so large also made it slow so it was usually the last ship in the line of yatchs.

I helped Seth, Sera's protege and second in command, carry the still unnamed guy to the _Whale_, and lay him down so the Doctor could examine him.

Seth has a sad story behind his origins after the outbreak in San Francisco. He and a bunch of other kids who had somehow managed to escape infection all banded together and holed-up on Alcatraz and used a boat to get to the main land and scavenge off it. They were just a bunch of kids though and quickly started dying from starvation and infection. We brought all of them that would come with us but most of them decided to stay where they were because for some of them it was all they ever knew. Seth was one of the older kids and a kind of leader for a small clique, all of who joined us, along with another clique led by an older girl. That's when our band, out little tribe, our crew numbers were at their highest at thirty individuals, but after several bad zombie attacks and some just plain bad luck we were now down to twenty.

Doctor Pholus looked the guy over. "You hit him pretty hard, Sera."

"And you say it like it's a bad thing." She shot back.

"I'm just saying, you didn't have to pistol-whip him, you could have just hit him with your hand." The Doctor had a point.

"Yeah, but why hurt myself by using my hand, when I can use a perfectly good inanimate object?" Sera had a better point.

The doctor sighed. "Head injuries are not something to make fun of."

"I know, I know. Next time my life's in danger I won't use a blunt object to the head." The doctor seemed sated. "I'll use a blade."

"Well, at least it will be a clean cut." He gave up arguing and started examining no-name guy.

Sera turned to me. "Jeff, you're in charge of this guy for now. Make sure he doesn't try to hurt anyone or steal anything. Ok?" She didn't like ordering people around, but it was definitely good to follow her suggestions. Sera turned to Dr. Pholus. "Can we keep moving?" Sera wanted to get closer to some place with some supplies even though we had enough to last us for a good while.

"You realize you gave him a third degree concussion, right?" Sera nodded. "And you know what could happen if his head gets jolted just right?"

"He could die. All right, Seth, tell everyone we're setting up camp here." Seth left immediately, followed by Sera who was grumbling to herself.


	2. Travis

Travis was the name of the guy who tried to kill Sera. We found that out after he woke up that evening. Sera told him he could stay with our group so long as he didn't try to kill anyone or steal or destroy anything, and so long as he pulled his own weight. Travis said he still didn't feel well from getting hit in the head and asked if he could have extra food rations. Sera allowed it only because he looked half starved. Travis also asked if he could sleep in one of the ships but was denied.

See, just because the land yatchs can carry between five and ten people doesn't mean that that many people can comfortably sleep inside one. Most of the crew actually slept in sleeping bags inside bivy sacks in the great outdoors but inside the circle we made with the yatchs every time we set up camp. The reason for using the sleeping bags inside the bivy sacks instead of tents was that they were much easier to set up and pack away since there were no stakes and no poles. If there was a zombie attack in the middle of the night you could just crawl out of your bag and throw it in one of the yatchs and leave just like that.

The watches were set up. Three shifts with three people each. We'd usually have more people on watch if there were a greater threat of zombie attacks, but tonight there wasn't. Each person on watch was equipped with a sniper rifle with a night vision scope so they could see and pick off the zombies if there were only a few.

Unfortunately we almost never had a campfire because it attracted too much attention and tonight was no exception. So when it got too dark to see everyone just went to bed, except the watches of course.

The night passed without incident and the next morning after a quick breakfast we packed up and, after consulting Dr. Pholus about Travis's health, we set off for the destination we had wanted to reach yesterday.

The wind had shifted direction that day, coming directly out of the west, but that was just fine because we had also changed direction and were now heading southeast. We made pretty good time and by the end of the day we were at the Snake River outside of Huntington on the border between Oregon and Idaho.

I tried to talk to Travis on the way there, since the traveling was kind of monotonous, but he wasn't very interested in small talk and preferred to just watch as everyone went about the business of steering the ship.

Since Travis wouldn't talk I was left to my own thoughts. Refusing to believe that I was like Travis when Sera found me my thoughts drifted to the first days of the outbreak.

I was in the military. I had a wife and a newborn daughter. I had gotten home just after the virus had reached where I lived. I had wanted to be home in time to see my daughter's birth but I missed it by only a couple days. The hospital was where my wife and baby girl had gotten infected, and by the time I saw them they were on the brink of becoming zombies. My wife tried to attack me, tried to kill me and eat me. They both had to be killed. That drove me over the edge. I got in the car, which I hadn't unpacked yet, and drove into the mountains until I ran out of gas.

Sera found me over a year later living like an animal, scavenging off of the remnants of civilization. I had tried to attack the fleet in the middle of the night but one of the watches had seen me long before I got close and alerted Sera. Sera decided she'd deal with me herself. She told the watches to let me sneak in close to camp then she ambushed me and knocked me out before I knew what happened.

I had woken up in the care of Sera herself, since at the time she was the person with the most medical experience in the fleet that numbered four ships and fifteen members. That's when Sera began what I now think of as the "taming" process. Mostly it just consisted of giving me enough food and providing me as much care as she could so I stopped looking like some starved, sick wild animal. Also re-socializing me with the other members of the crew. At first I couldn't even remember my name, and it had been so long since I had talked to anyone. But after a while I just got used to "normal" life again and became part of the crew of the fleet of _Land Sharks_. I later thanked Sera for even considering letting me live, and told her that she was like some angel sent to save me. That's when she told me that her full name was Seraphim.

----

That evening we made camp and set up a "low zombie threat" watch and then settled in for the night.

Sometime in the middle of the night I was awoken by a strange gasping shriek followed shortly after by a lower wailing groan. At first I thought it was some wild animals fighting but the sounds were so close they had to be in camp. Then I heard someone half shouting angrily through clenched teeth.

"You had your second chance after the first time you tried to kill me! You leave now! The next time anyone here sees your face they will shoot you, and no one here wastes bullets on warning shots!" That was Sera's voice, strained as it was.

I was out of my sleeping bag and running in Sera's direction before anyone else. Just as I reached Sera, who was on the outside of the yatch circle, she sank to her knees. Sera had her left side turned away from me, but I could see that she was cradling her left arm with her right and blood was running down it. She was trembling and cursing under her breath. When I tried to ask her what had happened she acted as if I wasn't there and then collapsed right in front of me. It was only then that I saw the huge, gaping slash across her back that went from her right hip to her left shoulder and was quickly covering her in her own blood.

By the time all this had ended a few sleepy crew members had come to investigate the noise, and I found the face I was looking for. "Seth! Go get the Doctor! She's bleeding badly!" I wasn't sure what to do with a wound like this but I did hold her left arm above her heart to try and slow the bleeding there.

It seemed to take forever, though it was probably no more than a minute, for Doctor Pholus to wake up, grab his first aid kit and come running over to the scene of the crime. The Doctor set to work immediately trying to stop or at least slow the bleeding. It was hard to assess the damage in the dark so the Doctor asked me to carry her to the _Whale_ where there was light and more of his equipment.

As I was about to pick her up she came to and started mumbling incomprehensibly in gasping whispers.

"Sera, who did this to you? Sera!" She couldn't focus. I shook her to the Doctors protests.

That seemed to work. "Travis!" She gasped. "Travis, the fucking bastard!" She started to fade out again. Sera was one of those people who rarely cursed, but when she did you knew the situation was really bad.

Seth heard her too. "I'll go tell the watches." And he left.

I almost wanted to go chase down Travis myself, he couldn't have gotten far, but I wanted more to make sure Sera would be all right so I carried her to the _Whale_.

After I had set her down on what had just been the Doctor's bed he shooed me out saying that it would be too crowded in the ship if I waited inside. Only him, his protege Ethan, and the patient Sera were allowed inside for the time being. I leaned against the ship and waited.

Seth returned after being gone less time than seemed right. He looked pale and distressed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Bob's dead and Rachel was unconscious when I found her." Those were two of the three people that had been posted for the current watch.

"Are you sure Bob's dead?" It would have been bad if he had just been wounded and then left there to slowly die when he could have been saved.

"Quite. He got a knife to the base of the skull. He died instantly." Seth shuddered.

"Did you?-"

"Yeah, I replaced Bob and Rachel and added two more people, all of whom I told to shoot Travis if they saw him." He seemed annoyed at me for thinking him incompetent.

Silence fell between us and we both listened to the sounds coming from inside the _Whale_. There wasn't much to listen to and my fatigued mind started wandering.

Doctor Edward Pholus, only a year out of Medical school when the outbreak happened. He had studied to become a surgeon but had also had an interest in diseases, which is how he came to make the vaccine that was now swimming in every crew members blood. When we found him, the last doctor still alive in that hellish hospital, he was so chewed up we almost left him for zombie chow, but Sera had seen the scars from healed bite marks on the parts of him that weren't chewed up and said that we had to save him, even though most of the crew still thought he was going to become a zombie soon. With the small amount of first-aid knowledge Sera had and the help of Ethan, who had been studying to become a nurse at the time of the outbreak, they managed to save Dr. Pholus' life, and in return he shared the vaccine and his knowledge and skill as a surgeon.

The door on the _Whale_ opened and started me out of my thoughts. Seth, who had sat down opposite it and was leaning against the yatch _Great White_, sat up and asked hesitantly. "Well?..."

The Doctor looked tired. "She'll be fine, but she's still unconscious, and will be drugged up pretty good for a while. The slice was pretty deep in places but it didn't damage anything vital it only cut through muscles. She'll still have difficulty at first and pain later doing anything that involves the use of her back muscles."

"So that means she'll be in pain doing just about anything but lying down?" I concluded.

"Correct. Oh, and she'll also have pain for a while when using her left hand. She also got sliced across the top of her left forearm but it was very shallow and did almost no damage."

"Hurray, she can still be ambidextrous." Seth said sarcastically.

"You two should get some sleep. Oh, and one of you tell Rachel to come see me. I want to make sure she wasn't injured too badly."

Seth and I both looked at each other. We didn't think he'd heard what Seth had said about the watches.

Seth said he'd go find Rachel, and I left to go find my sleeping bag. I laid there tossing and turning for a little while and wrestling with myself until I finally decided to just drag my bag over to the _Whale_ and sleep right next to the door. After I did that I fell into an uneasy sleep and had strange dreams about what I would do to Travis if I ever got my hands on him.


	3. Injuries

I woke up early, and noticed that Seth had followed my lead and moved his sleeping bag next to the _Whale_ in the middle of the night as well. With all the pressures of being second in command lifted by sleep he looked very young. He couldn't have been more than a young teenager when the outbreak happened. I tried to crawl out of my sleeping bag as quietly as possible so as not to wake Seth, but was unsuccessful.

"Morning already?" Seth asked hoping it wasn't true. He looked as tired as I felt. "Damn, I hardly slept at all."

"Yeah, I know how you feel. Shall we?" I gestured towards the door of the _Whale_.

We both entered and found Ethan already up. He looked like he had stayed up and watched Sera through the night. Ethan acknowledged us with a quick glance in our direction and then went back to whatever he had been doing before we had entered.

Sera was stretched out on the narrow bed/seat That was where Dr. Pholus would normally have slept, and Dr. Pholus was sleeping where Ethan would usually have slept. Sera was lying on her stomach with her left arm propped up to the side of her. She had no shirt on but that didn't matter much since almost her entire upper body was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages. She had tattoos on her back; I'd seen them the last time she had been severely injured. I could see most of her right falcon wing, the same color as her red hair, the small red griffin on her right shoulder that she had "watching her back," and the bottom of the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum" that she had running down her spine. And then there were the scars from the Washington incident, some of which still weren't fully healed. Bite-marks that almost looked like lace covered her upper arms and shoulders, there were even a few on her neck and ribs. She had nearly died from those wounds, she had wanted to die from them, but I don't want to think about that incident right now. I looked at Sera's face instead. She always looked so sad when she was sleeping, like she knew all the sorrows of the world.

Seth's words pulled me out of my thoughts. "How long are we going to have to stay here?" He asked Ethan since the Doctor was still asleep.

"Doc says at least a week, probably more. At least our situation's not nearly as bad as..." He trailed off, but we both knew he was referring to what recently happened in Washington.

I swore under my breath. "Did Travis take any weapons?"

"Only Rachel's knife. The rest: Rachel's rifle, Bob's rifle, and Bob's knife, were all dropped at the scene of the crime." Seth had obviously looked into my question last night.

"Well that's good, I think."

Just then a moan rose from Sera and everybody looked in her direction. Ethan moved to wake up Dr. Pholus, and Seth and I were instantly at her side. Sera's eyes fluttered open, clouded by drugs and not yet grasping the situation. She smiled questioningly and then started to move as if to get up.

"Stop her!! She could rip the stitches!" Ethan shouted. Seth and I both pushed her back down onto the bed and told her that she had to relax and stay still. She still didn't quite comprehend the situation but she agreed.

Dr. Pholus was quite awake by now, and was moving around the cabin looking for something. "Here it is." He held up a small orange bottle of pills. "She needs to take one of these every six hours."

"What are they?" Seth asked.

"Antibiotics." Ethan answered. He sounded grumpy.

The Doctor looked at him. "You should get some sleep. You've been up all night."

"After breakfast."

"Ah shit!! Oooh shit. Where's Travis? What time is it?" Sera finally became aware of her situation, and was trying to get up again.

"Girl, if you don't stop moving, so help me, I will tie you to that bed!" Dr. Pholus always threatened his patients like that when they were being uncooperative.

Sera laid back down. "Well?"

"Travis ran off after..." Seth made a vague gesture toward Sera. "No one's seen him since. And it's," he glanced at his watch, "hmm, almost breakfast time."

"Great, I'll-" She started to get up again.

"Girl, did you not hear me the first time? Stay still damn it!" This time Dr. Pholus really meant it.

"Sorry. How bad is it?" With all the drugs Sera couldn't feel any of her injuries.

"You were cut to the bone in some places." He replied.

"Well, that's not hard to do on the back." She tried to blow off the injury as not so bad.

"No, but it's also worse on the back because of all the nerves." The Doctor pointed out.

"Oh, right." Sera stopped arguing. Everything was silent for a while until Ethan's stomach growled loudly and everyone laughed.

"Time for breakfast, I guess." Ethan said.

Each ship had its own supplies for its occupants and could act independently from all the other ships if it had to. We tried not to specialize any of the ships and share supplies equally. The only exception was the _Whale_ because there were not enough of the Doctors supplies to be spread equally for each ship. This meant that Seth's, Sera's, and my food rations were on our own ships and we had to go get them if we wanted breakfast.

Seth and I left to go get food for Sera and ourselves. When we returned to the _Whale_ Dr. Pholus and Ethan were already eating.

Seth waited until everyone was mostly finished eating before asking Sera the question that was on everyone else's mind. "So what happened last night?"

Sera thought about it for a while whilst chewing on a mouthful of cereal and then replied. "Travis jumped me. I think he was trying to steal my ship, and he woke me up accidentally. So I went to see what the noise was and he jumped me."

Ethan interrupted. "Yeah, but was there a fight or something? What were the screams?"

Sera sighed. "The first one was me. The second one was Travis when I cranked his right arm around backwards and dislocated it."

"Oh." Everyone finished his or her breakfast in silence.

The days seemed stagnant now that we were staying in one place for a while to let Sera recover. The lack of motion made everyone restless and uneasy, myself included. Scavenging parties were sent out to nearby towns and reported back that there were some zombies. Despite their best efforts the zombies eventually managed to follow the scavengers back to the camp and after a few days we were forced to move.

Sera wasn't even close to recovered yet and the Doctor, despite her protests, was forced to put her out of her misery with a heavy dose of morphine. We didn't go very far, just far enough so that the zombies wouldn't catch up with us for a while.

This process was repeated several times until Sera had recovered enough to be relatively comfortable in an upright position for log periods of time. After this we resumed our normal pace following the Oregon Trail and interstate 84 east to Wyoming.


	4. Stolen

While we were skirting Boise, Idaho, Rafe, the dog handler and hunter, called a halt and backtracked a short distance.

"Tracks." Rafe said. I couldn't really see anything.

Sera nodded. "How recent?"

Rafe took a while to think about it. "Day and a half. Five people: three children, one teenage girl, and one woman. One of the children isn't well. They're sure determined to get somewhere."

He could tell all that from just the tracks?

Sera nodded again. "I want to follow the tracks that way." She pointed due south.

"The direction they came from?"

"Yes, I want to know where they came from. The tracks are only getting fresher in the opposite direction so I think we should follow them as far back as we can. Find out what we can about these people before we meet them." Sera was actually asking for agreement from everyone and when no one protested she said. "Well then, let's go!"

Since the land yatchs could move much faster than a person walking could we quickly started having trouble following the rapidly aging tracks. By the end of the day we were almost certain we had lost the trail when someone shouted. "Look!! A helicopter!"

Completely loosing interest in the vanished tracks we headed toward the helicopter. As we got closer we could see that they had had a very rough landing and the chopper probably wouldn't be flying any time soon if at all.

We set up camp near the chopper and started examining it. The helicopter had definitely crashed. One of the skids had broken off and the chopper had pitched sideways, catching the rotor blades on the ground. We noticed a fresh grave a short distance from the crash scene and assumed one of the passengers had died in the crash. We looked over the helicopter again to see if there was anything we could salvage from it, but there wasn't much. The owners of the chopper had picked it clean of anything useful and then left. The helicopter had Umbrella Corporation markings on it. Some people thought they had heard the name before but no one was certain.

"You think those people whose tracks we were following are the owners of this chopper?" I asked Rafe.

"No, but they were flyin' it." He replied as if it made perfect sense.

"I'm confused. You'll have to explain to me how they didn't own it but they still flew it."

"Stole it."

"Oh." Well, now it made more sense.

----

The next day we headed north in hopes of catching up with these new people.

About half way through the second day of tracking Rafe had noticed a change in the tracks. Another person, a man, had joined the group. Rafe had told Sera and they both seemed agitated for some reason.

By the end of the second day we were able to look through a scope and see a group of six people way off in the distance.

By the afternoon of the third day the group of people had noticed us and had stopped to wait for us to get to them. We stopped about 50 yards away from them, didn't want a repeat of the last time we met someone, and found something white to show that we meant them no harm.

"I need snipers!! Three at least! Travis is with them!" Sera was shouting.

"Travis is out there!?!?" Seth and I both said at the same time.

"Can I go out there and kill him right now?" Seth asked.

"No, I need you to stay here," Seth looked disappointed, "but you can grab a sniper rifle if you want." Sera turned to Rafe. "I need teeth and a nose, Rafe."

Rafe nodded and turned to go get an attack dog and another dog he had trained to sniff out infected people and weapons and other useful stuff.

"Jeff, you'll be coming with me and Rafe to meet those people and Travis." Sera kind of growled the last word as she said it.

We, Sera, Rafe and myself, walked the half a football field length out to meet these new people. They were all well within range of the rifles and if they tried anything they'd most likely be shot. So why wasn't Travis dead yet? He was hiding in the back using the others as a shield, damn coward.

The snipers are instructed to not waste ammo on iffy shots, so unless they are certain their bullet will hit its target they will hold their fire. Also, the snipers don't waste ammo on warning shots.

We were about 15 feet away when, "Stop right there!" The woman who was the leader of the small group said, as she pulled a gun out and aimed it at Sera.

Sera immediately raised her hands, which was actually a signal for the snipers to not fire even though she was being threatened. "I have snipers trained on you. They should have shot you a few second ago but I stopped them. You should put that gun down now if you don't want me to let them shoot you." Sera talked very calmly to the woman.

Their leader looked at the ships and then back to Sera and threw her gun on the ground in front of her. "You run up a white flag, but you have snipers ready to shoot us?"

"Just being cautious. I didn't want a repeat of the last time we met someone. Isn't that right Travis?" Sera was watching him carefully even though she hadn't been looking directly at him for most of the encounter.

"Travis? I thought you said your name was Tucker." Their leader looked questioningly at Travis.

Travis looked incredibly uncomfortable. "Well you see, I go by a lot of names, but that doesn't matter. She's still the one who tried to kill me!" He pointed at Sera.

"Kill you? Travis, a dislocated shoulder is not life threatening. Now what you did to me on the other hand, try to shoot me and then slash open my back in an attempt to steal one of the ships, now those were life threatening." Sera pointed out.

"He tried to slash open your back?" The woman asked, aghast.

"No, he actually did. You wanna see the scar? It's huge, and it still kinda hurts." Sera looked like she was about ready to pull up the back of her shirt and show her.

"No, that's ok. I believe you." She looked a little embarrassed.

"Do you guys really eat people?" One of the kids asked.

"What? No! Who told you that?" Sera was taken aback by the question.

The kid pointed at Travis. "Tucker said you were called the _Land Sharks_ because you eat people."

"No, the fleet is called the _Land Sharks_ because of how the sails look like shark fins, that's all. It wasn't really my idea." Sera explained.

"That's what they want you to think, and just when you think you're safe they turn on you. I just barely escaped." Travis looked desperate.

"Look, if we had wanted to kill you we would have done so a long time ago from much farther away. I mean at this range the snipers are so close they almost don't have to use the scopes. And also, what do you think we are, zombies or something? Eating people, pfft." Sera was trying to be reasonable.

"Look, maybe we should just all start over at the beginning with introductions," the teenage girl in the group suggested, "like this: hi, I'm K-Mart."

This seemed to catch everyone a little off guard, but Sera recovered first. "I'm Sera, this is Jeff and Rafe, and our fleet is called the _Land Sharks_." She pointed to the both of us and the fleet in turn.

"I'm Claire, you already met K-Mart, and that's Danny, Ashley, and Ari. We used to be from Claire Redfield's Convoy, but we've lost so many people and all our transportation." Claire sounded a little depressed.

"Well, you're all welcome to travel with us, except for Travis who'll be shot at the first opportunity that presents itself." Sera offered.

I wasn't sure if she was trying to be funny or what, but it made Travis even more upset than he already was.

"Hey, come on! Can't I have a second chance?" Travis looked scarily desperate.

"You already had it after the first time you tried to kill me." Sera said coolly.

"Heh, well third time's a charm?" Travis really didn't want to get shot.

"No, I think the saying goes more like this: 'Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me. Fool me a third time and you get a bullet between your eyes.'" Sera taunted.

"Please, just one more chance? I won't kill anyone this time or steal anything." Travis was begging now.

"Wait, you killed one of them?" Claire hadn't heard about that.

"Yeah, he snuck up behind one of the watches and stabbed him in the back of the head." I said helpfully.

"How 'bout this," Sera offered, "I'll give you the chance to run as fast as you can away from here and then I'll take bets on whether the snipers get you first or the attack dog."

That seemed to have crossed a line with Travis and he changed from desperate to just plain pissed.

"Now, Travis calm down. I'm sure Sera didn't mean that last thing she said, right?" Claire was trying to calm Travis.

"Claire, you should-" Sera was trying to warn Claire when Travis pulled out a switchblade and had it around Claire's neck before anyone could react.

"Shit!" That was pretty much what everyone said at about the same time.

"Nobody move!" The knife drew a trickle of blood.

"Go ahead and kill her, Travis. I don't know her, but if you kill her the snipers will not hesitate to shoot through her body to kill you." Sera was trying to insure that Travis wouldn't kill Claire, at least not until he was out of range of the sniper rifles.

"Everyone," Claire was referring to her little group of followers, "go with them. Go with Sera."

"Shut up bitch!!" Travis dug the knife in a little more and started backing away.

"What? Claire, no, we can't leave you." The kids all protested.

"Get away from Travis!" Sera didn't want anyone else to get in harms way.

"Come on! Come with me." It was Seth's voice. Everyone except Sera, who had probably signaled him, turned to look at him. Seth was about half way between us and the fleet and motioning for the small group of kids to follow him, but they looked torn.

"I'll be fine." Claire tried to convince them.

"Shut the fuck up, bitch!!" Travis was really hurting her now.

"Come on, she'll be ok. You heard her." Seth coaxed the kids.

The kids moved off to go with Seth back to the ships. Sera, Rafe, and I moved between them and Travis.

"By the way," Sera gibed, "I never got to ask, but how is you right shoulder where I dislocated it, still hurt?"

"Fuck you, god damned bitch." Travis growled as he continued to back away.

Eventually Claire and Travis were out of sight and everyone seemed to relax except for the four kids who had been in Claire's group. Seth was assigned public relations duty and was introducing Claire's group to everyone and everything in camp.

The kid that Rafe had said was not well was Ari and he was being taken care of by Dr. Pholus. Ari had a large, infected laceration on his upper right arm that was making him feverish, but the Doctor said he should be all right in a few days.

After Seth was finished with his little orientation he reported back to Sera. K-Mart was upset about Claire and insisted on speaking to Sera. I was just there out of curiosity.

"Are you gonna go rescue Claire?" K-Mart asked Sera expectedly.

"No." Sera said flatly.

"Why not?" K-Mart was a little upset.

Sera looked a little exasperated, like she didn't like to have explain herself but it happened a lot anyway. "We will wait 36 hours, a day and a half, for her to return. If she's not back by then we cut our losses and leave."

"What?!? No!! How could you?" K-Mart was so upset by this that she almost did not notice that her question had gone unanswered. "Why aren't you going to rescue her? Why are you just gonna leave her?" K-Mart looked caught somewhere between the verge of tears and punching Sera in the face.

Sera sighed and, not so much out of pity but more out of wanting K-Mart to stop pestering her, she explained. "To answer your question: I will not send a rescue party to rescue Claire because I think Travis expects it and will most likely set up some kind of ambush or trap and I don't want unnecessary injuries or deaths on behalf of one person I don't know nor see any reason to rescue."

K-Mart looked like she just got punched. She opened her mouth as if to say something, closed it, then opened it again but got cut off by Sera.

"Claire seems like a very capable woman, right? She looks like she can handle herself." K-Mart nodded, and Sera continued. "Travis won't kill her. He knows that she's much more valuable to him alive than dead. Claire knows that Travis is injured and weak because of it. Even if he does have a weapon she should still be able escape from him."

This seemed to placate K-Mart a little but she still wasn't satisfied. "But how can you just sit here and do nothing?!?"

"I just explained it to you. Were you not listening?" Now Sera was starting to get annoyed. "One life is not worth risking the safety of a good number of others especially in these times. We need as many people as possible to stay in the safest situations in order to survive." Sera was speaking from experience.

"'Survive!' So survival is selfish?" K-Mart scoffed.

"Of course. It's just a matter of to what degree you take it." Sera was now exposing some of her bare logic. "I am selfishly trying to protect this small group of people from harm by not sending out a rescue mission for one person. It's not worth it, several for one. Now maybe one for one, but that could be suicide and then there'd be two gone. Nope, it's not worth it." Sera said snidely.

K-Mart glared daggers at Sera and then stomped off followed closely by Seth who would try to keep her from doing anything stupid while we waited for Claire to return or not.


	5. Claire

Early the next morning Rachel, one of the watches, spotted Claire and reported it to Sera.

"Oh good, I wanted to leave early." Sera said briskly.

Rachel was surprised by this remark. "But, what should we do? She looks hurt."

"Could be a trap made by Travis. Let her walk here." Did I mention that Sera is paranoidly suspicious in a good, saved-our-asses-numerous-times way?

"Isn't that giving Travis a little too much credit?" Rachel argued.

"Better to overestimate your enemy than underestimate them." Rachel couldn't argue with that.

It took Claire about twenty minutes to walk from where Rachel had spotted her to just outside camp where she was told to stop. Rafe, a guard, and a sniffing dog were sent out to make sure everything was safe and then Claire was escorted to Dr. Pholus. She had been cut up a bit while escaping.

Sera must have been waiting in the Whale because she came out looking a little smug only a few minutes after Claire went in. "Travis is dead!" Sera announced to anyone within earshot, and then told everyone that we'd break camp as soon as Dr. Pholus had finished treating Claire.

----

Not until that night was I even able to attempt to talk to Claire since we had been traveling in separate ships the entire day.

Claire was constantly surrounded by her small group of kids. They followed her around like ducklings followed their mother, and it was difficult to even approach her. But at the moment Claire seemed to be looking for someone.

"Can I help you?" I offered.

"Yeah, I need to talk to Sera. I have something very important to tell her." Claire's voice was urgent.

I glanced around. For such a small group of people it was surprising how easily Sera could disappear if she wanted to. It was just another one of her weird abilities. I'd swear she'd been a ninja in one of her past lives. "First place I'd look would be in her ship the _Leopard_. Other than that I couldn't tell ya." I shrugged.

"Which one is that?" Claire asked. She and her little group hadn't left the _Whale_ since she arrived this morning and she had no idea which ships were which.

"It's this one." I pointed at the _Leopard_ and then started walking toward it. Claire and company followed me. When I got to the ship I knocked on the door. "Sera, you in there?! Claire wants to talk to you about something."

"Yes, one moment." Sera's voice answered. There were some sounds of movement inside the ship and then Sera opened the door. Apparently she had been changing because she only had on jeans and a black camisole that completely exposed the bite scars on her shoulders.

Claire's eyes widened at the sight of the scars and in an instant she had grabbed Sera by the shoulders and was examining the scars. Reflexively I drew my gun and aimed at Claire incase she tried anything. Sera tensed, controlling her reflex to defend herself, and let Claire look her over. K-Mart, in response to me threatening Claire, drew a gun also and pointed it at me. The scene kind of reminded me of two alpha dogs from different packs meeting each other and sort of sizing each other up while the rest of both packs growled at each other from the sidelines.

"Put the gun down or I'll shoot!" K-Mart threatened. I was torn between defending Sera and self-preservation.

"It's ok Jeff. Claire's not gonna do anything. You can put your gun away." Sera said reassuringly.

"I'll put it away, if she puts hers away." I countered.

Sera let out an exasperated sigh and grabbed Claire and pulled her inside the _Leopard_ and slammed the door before anyone else could move. K-Mart and company and I were left outside pointing guns at each other for no reason. I moved to stand guard at the door and also to see if I could catch any of the conversation. I know eavesdropping is bad but this conversation looked like it would be interesting. K-Mart also moved closer to the door, though cautiously, because we both still had our guns drawn.

"Eavesdropping is bad." K-Mart said matter-of-factly as she casually put her gun away.

I looked at her with contempt and said half to myself. "I wonder what they're talking about."

"Probably that book about Alaska that Alice found." K-Mart said coyly.

"What?" I said, surprised that she would tell me so easily.

"You heard me. So how did she get those scars?" K-Mart said, eager to find out.

I looked at her suspiciously. K-Mart wanted an exchange of information. "That's not really my story to tell." I said truthfully.

"Aww, please?" K-Mart begged.

"They're from zombies. That's all I'm gonna say." I tried to end the conversation.

"Well, that's obvious," K-Mart said plainly, "but how did it happen? How did she survive?" I grimaced inwardly just thinking about those questions.

"I really can't tell you that." I said authoritatively.

"Why not?" K-Mart said indignantly.

"Because I'm not supposed to." Well, that was one of the main reasons.

Just then, to my relief, Seth walked up. "Oh, there you guys are. Hey, it's about time for dinner and I put your rations in the _Whale_ since I thought you'd be in that ship, so that's where they are if you're hungry."

"Yeah, we're hungry." Ari said, tugging on K-Mart's shirt hem.

"Lapdogs." K-Mart said under her breath, as she walked away.

I wanted to say something back to that but she was already too far away for it to be worth it.

So, now I was alone outside the _Leopard_. Sera and Claire must have been talking quietly because I couldn't hear anything they were saying. My stomach growled and I mentally told it to shut up. I needed to stand watch. I could eat when Sera and Claire were finished talking. My mind wandered back to Sera's scars and K-Mart's questions and back to Washington.


End file.
